This week I am discussing the 2008 Olympic Games in a Business, Politics and Sport unit at the University of Canberra.
I am keen to discuss the iconography of the Games as a way to explore Olympism.
I thought I would start with this image:
and then discuss this video:
as a way to explore what we understand about cultural contexts and ‘documentary reality’.
My own thinking about the connections between business, politics and sport started with a research project into apartheid in sport (1973), was refocussed by Garry Whannel’s Blowing the Whistle (1983) and extended by John Hoberman’s discussion of Mortal Engines (1992).
I have been involved in international sport since 1980 and so I have had some wonderful opportunities to reflect on politics in sport and to contemplate ‘selective indignation‘, ‘moral hazard‘ and ‘willful blindness‘.
My discussion of the 2008 Olympics is linked to a history of the Games that includes events of 1936, 1972, 1980 and 1984 (but not limited solely to these Games).
Clyde Street 